of clean wheat. I harvested 225 bushels 37 pounds of wheat, (such as I herewith send you a sample.) In the piece was about three-quarters of an acre of wet ground, where I did not expect much wheat, but thought I would try the experiment whether by wet and frost it would turn to chess, according to the old farmers' tradition, which I never yet believed. But there was no chess. WM. ATKINSON.

Yours respectfully,

P. S. On the wet piece of ground spoken of above, there was not over six or seven bushels.

Mr. Atkinson attributes the excellence of this crop mainly to the liberal use of lime on the land.

JOHN C. TILLOTSON'S STATEMENT.

Amount of land, 4 acres. Amount of seed sown, 6 bushels. Amount of wheat raised, 155 bushels. The wheat was the Soules wheat, of a superior quality. J. C. TILLOTSON.

JAMES SIMS' STATEMENT.

Cazenovia, Jan. 12.

Sir-Being requested to furnish a statement of the amount of my wheat crop per acre, I send the following: Winter wheat raised on sward land, plowed once only, without manure. Yield, 31 bushels and 54 lbs. per acre. The Soules variety. Spring wheat sowed after corn. Yield, 28 bushels per acre. Black sea variety. JAMES SIMS.

TOWN ASSOCIATION, BROOKFIELD, MADISON Co.

REPORT. C. WHITFORD, COR. SECRETARY.

B. P. Johnson, Sec'y-Dear Sir: The undersigned gladly embraces this opportunity, at the instance of the "Brookfield Agricultural Society" to furnish you the following statement in relation to its doings. Our Society, as its title indicates, is a town organiza

tion, and was instituted and thus far sustained by individual efforts. It was organized in June, 1850-its charter and objects are set forth in the accompanying documents.

The results of said organization for the two years it has been in operation, have been of the most cheering and satisfactory character, clearly demonstrating the fact of the usefulness and efficiency of minor or home organizations in enabling our farmers and artizans better to prepare themselves for a favorable representation in our County and State Societies. The Society's account for the last year exhibits the following:

Received for membership,..

Paid premiums and expenses,..

Balance in Treasury,.

$101 03

57 16

$43 87

At the last Annual Meeting the following officers were elected for the year 1852:

President, Elisha G. Babcock; 1st Vice-President, Dan'l Brown; 2nd Vice-President, Oliver B. Hinkley; Recording Secretary, Augustus L. Saunders; Corresponding Secretary, Calvin Whitford.

The Society have within the past year furnished themselves with a tent 30 by 75 feet, and fixtures, at a cost of $125.00.

MONROE.

REPORT. L. B. LANGWORTHY, PRESIDENT, in answer to the President's circular:

The principal crop grown and depended upon for market, is wheat; to which perhaps, nearly one quarter of the whole arable land is annually devoted. The next greatest items depended upon, are fruit, wool and pork. There is a surplus of Indian corn and potatoes raised; but generally speaking these are secondary objects. The breadth of wheat sown is yearly increasing; the clearing up and bringing lands into cultivation, particularly by draining and render

ing arable; waste and new land is constantly advancing, as is the improvement of farm buildings, fences, and the substitution of gates for those miserable nuisances, bars.

The practice of deep plowing, is rapidly gaining ground among judicious farmers; but very little attention as yet, is paid to under draining, or to sub-soil plowing, in fact but few of our lands will ever require it, being a deep pervious soil, without a substratum of hardpan. It is becoming a very serious question, what our stoneless, timberless country, will in a few years have to resort to for fences. With our canals sweeping the country of wood for hundreds of miles, to supply the great towns, and the insatiable maw of the iron horse, steam boats, and the local motive power so rapidly increasing; which with the known improvidence of our people with the forest timber, renders the serious thoughts and attention of our yeomanry, the disquisitions of the press, and the exertions of the political economist, necessary to rouse the owners of the soil to the inevitable consequences of their carelessness on that subject. It is impossible for any individual to state with any accuracy, what number of acres are occupied with the great staple of this county, or the quantity produced; and it may be a pertinent question to ask, why the United States census does not embrace those facts, so important for forming statistical estimates; indeed, I can hardly conceive such are the facts, but have been so advised, and the public returns are not yet publicly promulgated. The quality of the crops this year is generally good; the wheat berry was fair, and harvested in good order; the yield was not as large as anticipated, owing to an over-produce of straw. The corn crop was rather late, but mostly ripened and sound; we had no frost to affect it till October. The potato crop was differently affected this year, from any period since the prevalence of the rot. The tops decayed earlier, and more generally than has heretofore been known, while those that rotted entirely disappeared, and those left generally sound, but undersized and short in quantity.

One thing may be taken as settled conclusively, that the disease is confined to the leaf and the elaborating and respiratory or

gans, and insects, if any, are the effect and not the cause. The tuber decays from immaturity of its components, an inevitable result from the destruction of the vines from any cause. Contrary, also, to its former action in previous years, the latest planted and latest varieties almost wholly escaped the epidemic. It is a curious fact if it is so proved, and there are several instances to thus far warrant the conclusion, that planting potatoes in alternate rows with corn, prevents the attack of the disease. The experiment is worth testing.

This county being a decided wheat growing region, and the entire tilable land, by a judicious course of rotation, wanted once in three years or less, for the plow, precludes the ability to have much breadth of land for permanent pasture or meadow, to sustain any great quantity of stock, over and above the farm and family wants, and therefore there is not that attention generally paid to the improvement of breeds, that the interest of every farmer demands. There has been considerable attention paid to the grade of sheep, but from the depressed state of the wool market, it is decidedly falling off.

The former introduction of the Berkshire and Leicestershire hogs, have altered the entire race. The shark and alligator breed have disappeared, and though far from being any thing super, they are respectable in size, shape, and disposition to fatten.

From the rapid increase of cheap agricultural works, and the avalanche of weekly and monthly papers devoted to this subject, the minds of farmers are undergoing a marked change, from the former prejudices against "book farming," and instead of relying on the moon, they are paying more attention to the plow and cultivator, and studying the nature, wants, and physiology of vegetable vitality—the nature and application of manures, and their production and protection. The value of farming lands are fast increasing, particularly in the neighborhood of towns and villages, or the great market thorougfares. The average market value of the entire county, not to include city town lots, is over fifty dollars

per acre. Good wheat farms with proper improvements, dwellings, out houses, and orchards, are daily selling at from 60 to 80 dollars, and many much higher.

The strongest wheat soils in this county are inclining to clay, containing more or less gravel and a notable quantity of lime, and the other constituents producing the silicates necessary for the production of the wheat plant. Lime as far as the trial has been made produces no marked effect, and is not used as a dressing on any crop with any benefit; owing probably to the yet original redundancy of that material in the soil.

The only minerals of any value discovered in this county are lenticular red oxyde of iron, overlaying the old red sandstone of the saliferous group, varying from one to three feet in thickness, and yielding about 33 per cent of a middling grade of iron; and the plaster beds of Wheatland in the Genesee valley; the continual growth and production of which, is an anomally in geological science. These beds are situated near the surface in a strata of shaly lime stone, approaching to hydraulic lime, and are produced, as is conjectured, from the exudation of sulphurous gas from below; the strata commences expanding at a particular point, in the shape of a small mound, being the only indication where to excavate to find the article, and in a basin ten or twelve feet deep and as many in diameter, lies the whole formation for that point. This formation is often the result of eight or ten years action, and has been known to disturb the horizontal position of the corners of buildings. Sulphur springs are common, and in the town of Riga there is a burning gas spring, giving a small issue of carbonated hydrogen. Weak salines are frequent at the out cropping of the variegated red sand stone, along the shore of lake Ontario, which in early times were worked by the first settlers.

Officers for 1852. J. P. Fogg, President; J. H. Kelly, Recording Secretary; J. Vick, jr., Corresponding Secretary; J. Rapalje, Treasurer; W. Otis, E. S. Hayward, J. G. Rumsdell, Vice Presidents.